Joy comes from occupation with the Person of Christ. Peace comes from knowing His work. Peace is established and settled forever by knowing the work of Christ and the perfection of it. Faith brings peace, but joy is in connection with the hope and the revelation of the Person of Jesus Christ. If you live upon the old knowledge you had of Christ a year ago, or twenty years ago, then of course there will not be the same joy that you would have with increasing knowledge. Joy is a thing that grows. Peace cannot grow, because it is established once and forever. But the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us, and as you read and get them more and more fresh in the heart, they will produce increasing joy.

I do not rejoice so much that I am saved, as I rejoice in the One who saved me. Simply going on rejoicing that I am saved is a very poor state. I am saved for the purpose of being occupied with the Person of Jesus Christ. Just get the eye on Christ and let the Holy Spirit point out the glories of His Person. As you get Christ more and more before you, your heart will rejoice more and more.

There is no joy in mere orthodoxy. Every creed is such that a person can hold it and not be converted. But to know the person of Christ is to have true life and joy in the soul.

When you have joy you have forgotten yourself of course. The moment self comes in, joy is hindered. If you are looking at your experience in any way, or tracing back old experiences, or anything of that kind, you will not have joy. There is no freshness about that. It is solely by having Christ more and more before the eyes that joy can be produced. In one Scripture you see Christ in one way, in another, in another way, and so in all of Scripture, Christ is the object. "Search the Scriptures; for … they are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39). Joy comes by being occupied with Christ and not with ourselves in any way whatever.

Sometimes the cares of the family, and sorrows and difficulties come in, and we allow ourselves to sink under them instead of using everything as a means of bringing us closer to Christ, and adding to our happiness by casting us more on Him. I ought to see that I am a debtor to those circumstances. They have really driven me more into the bosom of Christ, and I enjoy Him more and more. They are making me to know what I have to rest upon. If we would use our sorrows and our distresses in this way, we would say, "Thank God for them."

Nothing can harm us. Nothing can come to His people that is detrimental. We glory in tribulation also. In the midst of tribulation we can say, "This is a good thing for me. I would not have learned half so much about God without it." We see everything that comes to us as a means of growing stronger and happier and richer in God. We must never allow that peace to fluctuate. It can never change because the cross cannot change.

Never seek for joy; it is not an object to be sought. It comes. It is a fruit. "The fruit of the Spirit is … joy" (Galatians 5:22). You do not have to seek for it, or work for it in any way. You simply have to maintain fellowship with God by confessing sins, being restored, going on with God, and as He points out Christ more and more, you enter into His joy.

—M.T.